


let us be brave

by casdoms (moffwithhishead)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mark of Cain, Pining Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:30:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3931777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moffwithhishead/pseuds/casdoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He waits through it all, the trauma and the betrayal and the heartbreak, and he doesn’t move, hasn’t moved in years.</p><p>He waits until he’s better, until he isn’t poison, and he wonders how long that will be. Maybe it’s best he has the Mark now, and Castiel has his Grace, because that means he can wait even longer.</p><p>Maybe one day he won’t have to wait anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let us be brave

**Author's Note:**

> idk where this came from. set in current canon.

He waits.

He waits and he wonders and he looks at his best friend like he hung the stars, strung the moon up there high in the sky just to give little kids something to dream about at night.

He looks at an ancient being, he suspects it’s older than the concept of time itself, and watches it interact with humanity. The way its hands brush over a crying child’s face, the way they hold a small, vulnerable life like it’s worth more than the three year lifespan it isn’t guaranteed. The way its hands tear apart the earth and put it back together in such a way that new life can spring from it.

He watches the man, the angel, kneel outside of a pew in an old, rundown church with no windows, and say a prayer before sitting. He watches this incredible being pray to no one, with no expectations, only hope. Hope for something it knows doesn’t exist anymore, isn’t sure if it ever did. 

“Why do you do it?” He asks one day when they’re sitting on the roof of the bunker with beers in hand. 

“The same reason you do this,” he smiles a little bit, shrugging as if that explains it.

Maybe it does.

He waits and he watches and he falls -  _oh_ , how he falls. 

He falls into it, this feeling of contentment and belonging, and he wonders if this is what it’s like for everyone. If they’re confronted with something that terrifies them, that could kill them, and all at once they want to run away and drop to their knees, beg for it to stay. 

Head over heels, they say. 

Dean thinks he’s been falling logic over everything else.

“ _I have questions, I have doubts._ ” 

Maybe that was the moment when it first started, when the dominos first started to fall. Maybe that confession was the start of all of this, the thing that threw Dean off and made him stumble over logic.

He remembers everything at the beginning. He remembers the fear and the want that he’d felt, the terror of the being he now calls his best friend. He remembers it all, every second of hating him and wanting to hate him.

“ _If there is anything worth dying for... this is it._ ”

He still doesn’t know what ‘this’ is. 

But he’s been waiting, waiting for years now. Waiting since that moment when Castiel had looked at Dean and said they were making it up as they go.

Waiting for his head to catch up with his heart, waiting for the other shoe to drop (and it has - again and again and again and again). Waiting for the universe to drop a bomb on his head and remind him that he doesn’t get to have this. He doesn’t get to have this being, not in the way he wants. 

He waits through it all, the trauma and the betrayal and the heartbreak, and he doesn’t move, hasn’t moved in years.

He waits until he’s better, until he isn’t poison, and he wonders how long that will be. Maybe it’s best he has the Mark now, and Castiel has his Grace, because that means he can wait even longer.

Maybe one day he won’t have to wait anymore.

He calls when he can, texts when he can’t bare to hear the sound of his voice, and atones for his sins, for ruining such an incredible being. 

He used to pray, still does sometimes, and apologize, beg whatever being is up there to forgive Cas for Dean’s sins, for leading him astray. He quietly hates himself for it but his chest aches when he remembers that Castiel has known hunger in the most human way, has died for him,  _because_  of him. And he prays again, begging for forgiveness for a being much greater than himself. 

“ _Well, I'll go with you. And I'll do my best._ ” 

A moment when Cas wasn’t himself, wasn’t all there, and that was the moment when he knew for sure.

He waited through purgatory, waited through Naomi, waited and waited and waited until he felt desperate enough to initiate the self-destruct sequence.

Now he waits for the moment when his timer will run out and he’ll destroy everything and everyone in his path. He waits for the moment of truth, to find out if he truly is as poisonous as he’s always suspected. 

He’s torn down an angel so many times, reduced a being of great power and light to a human and a villain and an angel again. He’s torn down heaven’s greatest warriors, he’s destroyed the blueprints. 

He saw Castiel, in the future that wasn’t real, broken and bruised and drug-addled, burdened with pain and heartbreak that had been all Dean.

He waits through mini golf games, through short tempers, through his brother’s own inherited stupidity with the best intentions, through tragedies that didn’t need to happen. He waits through the loneliness, through the bone-deep depression, through the anxiety that keeps him in bed on his worst days. 

He waits through the dreams of slaughter, through the blood on his hands and in his clothes, the tissue embedded in his fingernails. 

He waits through this, his head barely above water. 

“I know it’s not much,” Castiel says one morning when Dean wakes up to McDonald’s and coffee on his nightstand. “But it’s good and affordable and it will help you get through today with something in your system.” 

Something more than fire and rage. Something real, something human. 

He watches this man - no, this  _being_ , this celestial wavelength of intent, this lightning in a bottle, this embodiment of goodness and hope, standing at the foot of his bed, shifting nervously on his feet. He watches his friend be uncertain and nervous and his heart swells with adoration and guilt.

“Yeah,” his throat is dry from the screaming, his eyes tired, “Thanks.” 

He waits and he wonders if this is it, if this is the moment when he can say it. When he can say it without fear of the repercussions, without his father’s voice at the back of his head and years of ingrained fear clawing at his chest. 

Instead, he eats.

He eats the food and the grease, lets Castiel’s voice wash over him as he updates him on a case, on the status of something he doesn’t care about.

His mind wanders to the feeling of Castiel’s hands on his face in a context when they’re not healing physical wounds, but maybe in a more tender way. Maybe in a way with no motivation beyond the desire to touch.

He waits for Castiel to stop talking, he watches his hands clench around phantom weapons, around things he wants to touch but can’t.

He wonders what those things are, if Cas wants to touch him. His hands, his face, his chest, his shoulder. Anything, everything, just as Dean wants to touch him. To feel him there, in this room, to know he’s real and he’s in one piece. 

“Hey,” he hears his own voice before he registers he’s speaking. “You alright?”

Castiel doesn’t meet his eyes but he smiles ruefully, shakes his head a little, “I’m worried.” 

Dean’s chest aches and he wonders what Cas’ smile would feel like against his own lips, “About me?” 

“Yes,” he says simply, as if that’s the only possible answer in the universe.

Maybe it is.

“Me too,” Dean supplies after a beat, hoping it’s enough to reassure... something. He doesn’t know. He never knows anymore.

It takes him a few moments to look up, to meet Dean’s eyes, “I believe in you.”

He snorts, looks down at the trash in his lap, “I don’t.” 

“That’s alright,” Cas promises, his voice as even as ever, “I’ve been waiting for you to start believing long enough that I’m sure I have enough hope stored up for the both of us.”

He’s been waiting.

Dean feels something warm and familiar bloom in his chest, something that doesn’t involve blood and a blade he can’t get his hands on.

He tries to keep his voice as even as Cas’, tries to remember to breathe even though he doesn’t need to, “Still think I deserve to be saved?” 

Cas’ eyes light up, the sad smile becoming a little more genuine, “Good things do happen, Dean.” 

He stands up and presses a kiss to Dean’s forehead, murmuring, “You just have to have faith that this is going to be one of them.”

He just has to wait.


End file.
